For a spectacle involving a bunch of deformed grunts fighting for possession of a ball, Rugby's been getting a massive press windfall since "our team" (England) beat "their team" (Australia). Growing up in Northern Ireland, I learned that it didn't quite do to support such an inadequate collection of flabby turds as our own team. We supported England, whatever the sport was - even if it was something disturbingly genteel like cricket. And so, if England brought home a trophy after years of miserable failure, I would have been the first one prancing around like a little fairy in my England flag.

Well, not any more, you limey fucks! Yeah, I'm talking to you.

See, I couldn't help but notice a few things about this sudden enthusiasm for rugby that Englanders are evincing:

a) It's all made up. Noone gives the slightest cock about rugby, not even the players' mums.

b) It was the one excuse for a national day off work that wouldn't result in the threat of sack and lots of little schoolkids being molested by the old bill (pace, antiwar demos).

c) England sucks. I don't mean at sporting endeavours, I mean in every walk of life. This country is cold, wet, the pubs shut too early, the laws are oppressively outmoded, the newspapers are cack, and we can't choose between post-colonial internationalism or just old fashioned nationalism, so we get the worst of both worlds.

d) Other stuff happened.

No, really! I swear to fuck, (or, more properly, to Marilyn Manson the God of Fuck), other shit went down while all you goofballs were busy swearing allegiance to some gloriously illiterate, twatty, overgrown schoolboys crammed into ill-fitting suits. I know you're probably thinking I'm taking the piss out of you, but lenin would never presume to satirise a group so profoundly intelligent as rugby fans (neophytic or otherwise). Seriously, stuff happened. Like:

America killed some more people in Afghanistan. Wasn't that last year? Yeah, well, they said it would all be fine by now but times makes fools of us all, and now the warlords control the country, the Taliban are making a comeback and no elections in sight for those lucky bastards in Kabul or elsewhere who could even contemplate taking part in an election.

So, there you go. There's just a few of the things that happened while you were away. Yeah, you bet I give a shit about the rugby and all its sudden converts who should be punished by being forced to watch the bastarding horseshit for a year. No offence. I care a lot.